So Next Year, I'll Have Mimosas for Breakfast, Beer with Lunch, and Cocktail Hour Will Begin at 3 p.m.

Final standings of the Second Annual Wolta Christmas Madden Throwdown: Justin defeats Eric, seven games to six. A squeaker of a victory for me, due largely to my undefeated record in games played after 11 p.m. when the grandparents went to bed and the booze started flowing.

Shhh...

I’m on a pitch-black stretch of two-lane Nebraska blacktop. Living in the city, I don’t see nights this dark anymore. It seems so unnatural. There’s a freight train chugging along on one side of me, oncoming traffic on the other. And here I am, reckless: steering with my knees, ponging between the dashed yellow lines and the ditch full of barbed wire and cornhusks, squinting up into headlights between words as I text my response to the forchest news I could possibly hear right now.